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One of the key reasons that New Jersey, USA-based Accurate Box has remained successful over its 74 years is investment - in its employee base, in its equipment and in its customer’s ongoing needs. With a reputation for providing exceptional high quality graphics for corrugated packaging for nationally-recognised brands such as Kellogg's and Pepsico that line the aisles of big box retailers like Costco and Sam's Club, this third-generation, woman owned business consistently seeks the best and brightest local employees, the most automated and technically-advanced equipment and keeps its fingers on the pulse of the fast-moving trends in its niche of the market.

Founded in 1944 by Henry Hirsh, Accurate Box has remained in northern New Jersey, first in Newark and for the past 35 years in Patterson. Its 400,000 sq ft headquarters sits in an industrial area of the city and draws its 270 employees from the nearby community. Henry’s son Charlie led the company from the 1960s until 1997, guiding the company through tremendous growth as a folding carton manufacturer specialising in large format packaging. When his daughter, Lisa Hirsh, joined the family business and officially took over in 1997, she maintained that tradition of reinvesting in the company’s future. Since then, she has built on the solid foundation laid by her father and grandfather, modernising and expanding its capacity and building it into one of the largest independent box manufacturers of litho-laminated packaging in the US.

“We continue to deepen our relationship with our customers,” says Lisa Hirsh, President and CEO of Accurate Box. “Our goal is to help them stand out - whether it be on store shelves or as an e-commerce delivery, not blend in. Our team is constantly collaborating with our customers’ product management and graphics teams to find new ways to enhance their packages and increase wholesale club store sales or direct to consumer sales revenue. We want the graphics to entice customers to purchase the products. To achieve those results, we are always seeking to leverage the innovations and advanced technologies available to our market.”

Seven colour press

At the end of June, Accurate added to its pressroom firepower with a new Koenig & Bauer Rapida 164 seven-colour press. The newly designed blue and gray model operates 24/7 alongside the two existing Koenig & Bauer Rapida 162 64-inch seven-colour sheetfed printing presses, providing Accurate with even more press capacity, faster speeds, improved set-up, new computerizsed quality systems and enhancements. An additional key feature of this fast large-format Rapida is a logistics system for the feeder.

Working with major brands and their specific colour schemes, logos and graphics, it is imperative for Accurate to match those shades and images box-to-box and run-to-run. Aiding in this endeavour is the combination of Koenig & Bauer inline QualiTronic Color Control capability and System Brunner Instrument Flight print quality measuring system on the new Rapida 164. Tthe Koenig & Bauer QualiTronic Instrument Flight emphasises colour balance and gray balance, taking into account more than 30 process variables. This allows Accurate to produce the highest quality images on corrugated material that will withstand shipping, storage and display.

Corrugated graphics“Our reputation has always been as a world class manufacturer that produces high graphic corrugated boxes,” says Hirsh. “As the marketplace continues to rapidly transform, our strategy is to fully embrace the e-commerce sector. Marketers who focus on online consumers are searching for other ways to create a different type of branded consumer experience. High graphic, corrugated packaging offered through our company has often filled this void through its process of creating unique packaging for online consumers strategically branded on the inside. As the e-commerce market grows, the ‘unboxing’ experience is increasingly more important to online consumers.”

As its customers continue to require high quality brilliant graphics, Accurate decided to equip its new press with LED-UV technology, providing them with greater colour fidelity and even more stunning results. The added benefit of the LED-UV technology is its ability to speed job cycle times and deliver a bindery-ready sheet to Accurate’s post-press department. Having the press specified with the high-speed package provides the press operators a major increase in productivity.

“We determined that Koenig & Bauer brings exceptional value to its customers,” concludes Hirsh. “There are a lot of fine presses on the market but Koenig & Bauer delivered on the capabilities that we needed. Plus, our on-going relationship with KBA North America and our sales manager Ed Heffernan was definitely an important factor. In the end, we were quite comfortable with our decision.”